#1935 (4/30) SUNDAY SPECIAL "Religion and Inequality - What the Secularists Are Missing"

"RELIGION AND INEQUALITY - WHAT THE SECULARISTS ARE MISSING" - by: Eric Metaxas & Roberto Rivera, Breakpoint.org, April 5, 2017, http://breakpoint.org/2017/04/breakpoint-religion-and-inequality/

Religion is good for you: emotionally, physically, and economically. Who knew? Not the secularists.

In 2000, Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam published his groundbreaking book, “Bowling Alone.” Putnam argued that Americans’ reduced interest in civic engagement—by which he meant not only things of a political nature but also things like the PTA, Boy Scouts, groups like the Elks, and, yes, bowling leagues—had reduced the store of what is called “social capital.”
“Social capital” is what sociologist call “the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively.”

This is more than theory. It gets to the heart of one of the pressing issues of our time: social and economic inequality. And while Americans, as a whole, prefer to bowl alone, this solitude isn’t equally distributed.

As Putnam documents in his most recent book, “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis,” one thing that separates children from families in the top 25 percent of households measured by income and education from their counterparts in the bottom twenty-five percent is social capital. The well-off parents featured in “Our Kids” were, if anything, exhaustingly engaged and enmeshed in far-reaching networks that made life better for their kids.

While we shouldn’t be surprised that good connections offer better-off kids a significant advantage over their poorer counterparts, there’s something else that provides another significant advantage: religious participation.

Churchgoing kids “are less prone to substance abuse (drugs, alcohol, and smoking), risky behavior (like not wearing seat belts), and delinquency (shoplifting, misbehaving in school, and being suspended or expelled).”

But the benefits of regular church attendance do not stop there. As Putnam tells us, “Compared to their unchurched peers, youth who are involved in a religious organization take tougher courses, get higher grades and test scores, and are less likely to drop out of high school.”

They also “have better relations with their parents and other adults, have more friendships with high-performing peers, are more involved in sports and other extracurricular activities.” In fact, churchgoing is so beneficial to academic performance that “a child whose parents attend church regularly is 40 to 50 percent more likely to go on to college than a matched child of nonattenders.”

Now, this is true regardless of socioeconomic status. The problem is that regular church attendance is increasingly tied to socioeconomic status. According to Putnam, while “weekly church attendance” among college-educated families since the late 1970s has remained more or less the same, it has dropped by almost a third among those with a high school diploma or less. The result is “a substantial class gap that did not exist” fifty years ago. It’s yet another way that poorer kids are falling behind their more affluent counterparts.

Given the benefits of regular church attendance, the insistence on minimizing the role of religion in American public life is, to put it mildly, perverse. Society hasn’t figured out how to reliably give poor kids access to the kinds of advantages, both material and intangible, that better-off kids take for granted.

But we, the Church, do know how to reach out to them and their families in Jesus’ name. We have millennia of experience in ministering to the least, the last, and the lost. And now we have evidence that this kind of ministry has benefits that few people, Christians or non-Christians, ever suspected.

Will today’s “cultured despisers” of religion pay heed? Probably not. But we owe it to the kids—all kids—to ignore those naysayers and to freely give them what we have freely received.

Further Reading and Information - This commentary is a great encouragement for those who participate in regular church attendance. As Eric points out, the positive benefits of committed religious observation are reflected in the statistics. Regardless of socioeconomic status,  everyone can benefit from making religious instruction a priority.
"Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" - Robert Putnam | Simon & Schuster Publisher | August 2001; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/Product.asp?sku=0743203046
"Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis" - Robert Putnam | Simon & Schuster Publisher | March 2016; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9781476769905

#1934 (4/30) PRO-LIFE SAT:" Mello Dramatic at the DNC"

PRO-LIFE SAT:" MELLO DRAMATIC AT THE DNC" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, April 25, 2017; http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA17D45&f=WU17D15

Nebraska isn't usually a pin on the map of political hotspots, but that all changed this week with Omaha's candidates for mayor. Thanks to Heath Mello's (D) pro-life views, a race that would have been a footnote in the national news has exploded into a front-page headline about the DNC's hard ideological line on abortion.

After years of squeezing out socially conservative Democrats, the party is struggling to win back seats in the heartland, where voters might lean Left on economic issues, but pro-life, pro-faith roots run deep. New DNC chairman Tom Perez tried to walk that line with an endorsement for Mello, only to face fire from the abortion militants in his own camp. Without pulling the DNC's support, he sent a chilling message to all Democratic candidates that nothing less than unconditional surrender on life would be tolerated. "Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health," Perez said. "That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state... At a time when women's rights are under assault from the White House, the Republican Congress, and in states across the country," he added, "we must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice."

Telling pro-lifers to drop dead isn't exactly the smartest political strategy, Dave Freddoso points out. In his op-ed, "Democrats Unlearn Their Own Election History," he -- like a lot of voters -- couldn't believe his ears. "It is puzzling that the head of a political party, whose job is to win elections, would send such a clearly exclusionary message to officeholders and candidates without whose victory his party would probably remain a minority forever."

Obviously, Perez seems intent on following Hillary Clinton into some of the most radical terrain on abortion ever broached. From her shameless support of taxpayer-funded abortion to her elevation of groups that illegally sell baby body parts, the former First Lady was determined to make November's election about an extreme social agenda that's increasingly out of touch with women. And she paid dearly for it. With Planned Parenthood cheering her on, Clinton rushed to embrace the "abortion-ization" of the Democratic Party without any regard to the political consequences. Which, on November 8, were many.

Ignoring thousands of pro-life Democrats, the DNC's platform was a case study in over-the-top extremism. For the first time in history, it called for overturning the Hyde and Helms amendments, demanding that federal taxpayers fund abortion-on-demand at home and abroad. (Not only did DNC leaders want abortion to be a routine medical procedure, they wanted Americans to pay for the entire world's!) That in itself was a crystalizing moment for the country, which could only marvel at the sharp contrasts between the two parties.

Under the GOP platform, Republicans reiterated their support for the walls between taxpayers and the dark world of abortion, calling on Congress to make the Hyde amendment permanent in all walks of government funding -- including health care. They also insisted on defending the First Amendment rights of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and organizations when it comes to issues like abortion funding, procedures, drugs, and health insurance. The Democrats supported Planned Parenthood by name. The Republicans, for the first time, called for the defunding it. In every possible way, the parties confirmed what everyone already knew: they are polar opposites.

It's those growing ideological differences that set the stage for inner-party squabbles like Mello's. If anyone needed proof that the mushy middle is shrinking, it's the drama playing out in Omaha. Hopefully, the GOP will learn from Nebraska (and from last November) that being a social squish doesn't work. Donald Trump won the election by appealing to his base, not bowing to moderates. In a political arena with fewer gray areas, what wins elections is taking a strong stance -- which, in the GOP's case, also happens to be the popular one.

While the DNC continues to shamelessly promote abortion right up to the moment of birth, polling shows that it's a far cry from voters' position on the issue. Almost eight in 10 Americans (78 percent) would limit abortion to the first trimester -- including 62 percent who call themselves "pro-choice." Voters let the DNC know what it thought about its extreme social agenda last November. I hope the GOP was listening!

 [bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

#1933 (4/29) "What Trump Has Done on Immigration in First 100 Days"

ATTENTION:  SCROLL DOWN  to get t today's article entitled in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. And PLEASE be sure to note the various PRAYER REQUESTS listed AFTER the posted article. They deserve  your intercession. THANK YOU.

BE Prepared TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST ABORTION 

(...because ALL Babies Matter! - http://www.lifenews.com/2017/03/01/why-do-unborn-babies-matter-just-because-they-are/ 

: Go to: LIFE Training Institute - http://prolifetraining.com/resources/five-minute-11/  

Be Prepared TO ENGAGE WITH THE PC CULTURE:

Go to:"Tactics" - 

http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2016/04/29/tactics-n2154983

PERSONAL UPDATE:4/27 - See JOURNAL section on the right side of this page for the very latest.  4/25 - : Thank God that the pain has subsided some. I just pray that after the coming week, I will have healed enough to be able to return to work and will not return too soon and re-injure myself. 4/16 – I fell in the shower and injured my ribs on Friday. Doctor has told me I will need several weeks to heal. Am not sure when I can return to work. Also, the pain is great to move, to sneeze (!) and so just getting around is VERY difficult. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS!

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"WHAT TRUMP HAS DONE ON IMMIGRATION IN FIRST 100 DAYS" - Rachel del Guidice / April 26, 2017 / http://dailysignal.com/2017/04/26/what-trump-has-done-on-immigration-in-first-100-days/

President Donald Trump’s firm rhetoric and actions on immigration and border control already are helping decrease illegal border crossings, some immigration experts say. (Photo: Pool/ABACA /Newscom)

President Donald Trump’s dedication to enforcing immigration law is one of his significant accomplishments as he nears his 100th day in office Saturday, experts and lawmakers say.
Trump is “taking the handcuffs off of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the Border Patrol because the immigration enforcement officers were prohibited from doing their job to a significant degree under [President Barack] Obama,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Signal in an interview.

The Trump administration highlighted its dedication to enforcing immigration law in a list, initially obtained by CNN, which specifies victories during the president’s first 100 days in office. Included are executive orders issued by Trump on Jan. 25 that detail border security and immigration enforcement directives. These include instructions for a border wall, an order to withhold funding from sanctuary cities that are noncompliant with U.S. immigration law, and the hiring of “10,000 additional immigration officers.”

The list also includes an April 11 announcement from Attorney General Jeff Sessions where he instructed federal prosecutors to prioritize criminal immigration enforcement. Trump also signed a revised executive order in March which placed temporary travel restrictions on residents of six countries the Obama administration and Congress had designated as posing risks of terrorism. The original executive order issued in January was nullified by a federal judge in Seattle in a ruling upheld by a U.S. appeals court. The revised executive order was blocked by a federal judge in Hawaii.

Enforcing the Law - Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, who is vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime, terrorism, and homeland security, said he agrees with these measures. “Just having a president who says, ‘We’re going to enforce the border’ has had a profound effect on the number of people that are coming into the country illegally,” Gohmert told The Daily Signal in an interview. “It [has] already dramatically been cut back and so I think this is moving along quite well.”
     Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an interview that there is a stark difference between the Obama administration and the Trump administration. “What has changed so radically is that the Department of Homeland Security and all our border patrol agents are now finally able to do their jobs,” von Spakovsky said. “The handcuffs have been taken off.” The number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in March, under 12,500, is the lowest total in 17 years, he said.
     Trump’s approach to illegal immigration is vastly different from Obama’s, said Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates stricter enforcement of immigration laws. “Under Obama … if the Border Patrol caught somebody who said he had been in the United States before January of 2014, they had to let him go, even if they knew he was illegal,” Krikorian said. “In other words, Obama essentially had a kind of informal amnesty for anyone sneaking across the border who would say that he had been in the country before January of 2014.”
     This practice, reinstated in 2016, came from Obama’s “priorities” program, which instructed agents to pick up criminals, individuals threatening national security, and illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. after Jan. 1, 2014. When Obama was in office, Krikorian said, Border Patrol agents would see individuals who were “still wet from wading across the Rio Grande.” However, if the Border Patrol agents “hadn’t actually seen them with their own eyes in the river, they had to let them go” if they claimed to have arrived before 2014, he said.

Working Toward Building the Wall - Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said Trump’s promise of building a border wall is already decreasing illegal immigration. “One thing that the Trump administration has done very well is broadcast loud and clear that they are going to keep their promise of [building] the border wall,” Biggs, who comes from a border state, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “And that has resulted in a reduction in crossings.”
     Last month, Trump sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which detailed border wall funding with a request for $1.38 trillion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to be available through September 2021. It would cover “procurement, construction, and improvements required for the operational control of United States borders, including design and construction of a wall and other physical barriers on the southern border of the United States.” 
    Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate, however, have said they prefer to put off a fight with Democrats over beginning to pay for the wall until the fall, rather than as part of funding the government for the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. “Full border wall funding can’t be there at this point,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., a supporter of the wall, said in a recent interview with The Daily Signal. “It’s not designed, prototypes have not been created.” Trump said Tuesday that funding for the wall likely will not be included in the spending bill that Congress must pass by midnight Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown, The New York Times reported.
     Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank on immigration, told The Daily Signal in an email that “the net result of his first 100 days is that a combination of action and rhetoric appear to be significantly reshaping the current immigration reality in the U.S.”

Taking a Stand Against Sanctuary Cities- Trump issued an executive order Jan. 25 denying unspecified federal funding to sanctuary cities. “I’ve been particularly encouraged by the administration’s support for denying federal funds to sanctuary cities, in line with legislation I’ve backed,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal.
     During the Obama presidency, Blunt called on Senate colleagues to “limit federal funding” to sanctuary cities that did not cooperate with enforcing federal immigration laws. “The previous administration set a dangerous precedent by cherry-picking the laws it chose to enforce, and I’m glad we now have a partner in the White House who is holding sanctuary cities accountable,” Blunt said.
     Trump’s order is facing opposition in the courts, however. On Tuesday, a federal judge in San Francisco placed a national hold on Trump’s executive order regarding sanctuary cities until the issue can work its way through the courts. Federal funding for entitlement programs such as Medicaid in sanctuary cities, however, would not be affected by the president’s order, von Spakovsky said in a new commentary.
     The Department of Justice says it is working to implement Trump’s executive order to urge sanctuary cities to provide documentation of compliance with the department. The department also is hiring more immigration judges who will serve at detention centers along the border, Sessions announced this month.

Room to Improve- An area of immigration policy that Trump could improve on, Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies said, is addressing a program implemented by the Obama administration in 2012 called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. This program has provided deportation protection and work permits to over 750,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. “The fact that [Trump] has basically adopted the DACA, the illegal DACA amnesty, as his own is the one big black mark with regard to immigration,” Krikorian said. “Does it cancel everything else out? No, but it clearly is a problem.”

...Blunt appeared to like what he sees. “President Trump is putting the safety of the American people first by taking action to enforce our immigration laws, strengthen border security, and prevent terrorists from entering the country,” he said.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

"Trump’s Border Wall Request Equals 0.035% of Federal Spending" - By Terence P. Jeffrey | April 25, 2017 |http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/trumps-border-wall-request-equals-0035-federal-spending

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PRAYER MATTERS:
"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world." - Karl Barth; "Prayer is inviting God into a seemingly impossible situation and trusting/resting in His love and grace to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect time and for His greatest glory." - Stan 

PLEASE BE IN PRAYER FOR THE PEOPLE OF SYRIA [from OpenDoors.org]

*For families struck by terror in such an unexpected way — while they were sleeping — to receive the care and rest that they need to physically and emotionally heal from this horrific ordeal.

*For those who executed the attack. This act was full of evil and hate, but no one is too far from God’s saving grace. May God convict their hearts today of the evil act they did — in direct rebellion to Him and His Word. May He save them miraculously, just as God did with Paul, while he was persecuting the church.

*For believers in Syria and in this region as they navigate so much uncertainty. May they remain faithful to God through these most difficult times as He sustains them with peace and endurance. May the gospel be ever-present in their minds.

2/7 American Center for Law and Justice: American Pastor Andrew Brunson still languishes in a Turkish prison. He’s one of 19 prisoners in a 10-person cell. He’s the only Christian. Pastor Andrew has been falsely charged with “membership in an armed terrorist organization.” He has served and loved the people of Turkey for more than two decades. Now this U.S. citizen is in extreme danger – falsely charged for his Christian faith. We are representing his family and have launched an aggressive global campaign demanding that Turkey – a fellow member of NATO – release him immediately. We’re working on Capitol Hill with our nation’s leaders, through our international offices, and around the globe to secure the release of Pastor Andrew. Now, we are preparing to send a critical legal letter to Turkey’s president in the next few days. Time is of the essence. Sign our letter before we send it. Join the fight. Be Pastor Andrew’s voice. He needs it now more than ever.Sign Our Petition: Free American Pastor Andrew Brunson.https://aclj.org/persecuted-church/free-american-pastor-andrew-brunson 

12/13- American Center For Law and Justice: On trial for their faith, two Christian pastors in Sudan face death. Christian Pastors Hassan Abduraheem and Kuwa Shamal have been brutally imprisoned for nearly a year – 359 days – in deplorable conditions. Their trial has been delayed time and time again.Their churches miss them. Their families need them. They face possible death sentences because they are Christians. At the ACLJ, we've launched a massive international legal advocacy campaign for their freedom. We're preparing critical legal letters to Sudan, raising their case with world leaders, and preparing action at the U.N. They could be sentenced to hang for their faith if the world is silent. Christian Pastors Hassan and Kuwa need your voice now. Time is of the essence, as the trial continues. Our silence could be their death.Other Christians facing death in Sudan are now free because you spoke out. Demand Sudan free Pastors Hassan and Kuwa now. Sign Our Petition: Save Christian Pastors from Death...https://aclj.org/persecuted-church/save-christian-pastors-from-possible-death?

PRAY FOR AMERICA: THANK GOD for His many blessings on America throughout it's history. May we then ask that AMERICA once again be a blessing TO GOD, by once again submitting to HIS will in our affairs - both personal and national - that He may truly "heal our land." (2 Chron. 7:14) Short of that, we should not be saying "God Bless America"but instead "God be merciful towards America!"

PRAY FOR OUR LEADERS:  1) Pray for President Trump and his advisers, that they would select Godly leaders at the federal level who will be accountable to do an excellent job (or be fired!) ; that he would seek God's wisdom and be enabled to lead our country effectively in the years ahead; and 2) Pray our leaders at every level of government will Spirit-filled, leading us with Godly wisdom and integrity; that they will  only pass legislation and enact policies that will benefit Americans today as well as future generations and NOT do any lasting harm.

SUPREME COURT: PRAY 1) that the Senate will quickly confirm Judge Gorsuch for the Supeme Court, and 2) that the justices will only hand down decisions that are Constitutionally sound and in the best interests of our country now and for future generations.

Other World-Wide Prayer Requests:

 This is a photo of 3 of Asia's daughters holding a picture of their imprisoned mother.

A Christian Mother's Mandatory Death Penalty Could Be Overturned. PRAY and Sign the Petition Now! - https://aclj.org/persecuted-church/save-christian-mom-asia-bibi-from-execution? 
Learn about Christian Persecution; Check out the World Watch List:

http://live.opendoorsusa.org/wwl/?utm_source=action&utm_medium=email&utm_content=content-banner&utm_campaign=may-2016
PRAY for the ON-GOING crisis now happening in IRAQ/SYRIA.  Pray that coalition forces will be able to destroy the leadership and infrastructure of ISIS.

#1932 (4/27) ["Earth Day"]: "Environmentalists Are Dead Wrong"

"ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE DEAD WRONG" - Walter E. Williams : Apr 26, 2017; 
https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2017/04/26/environmentalists-are-dead-wrong-n2317342 [AS I SEE IT: I post this in tribute to this year's celebration of "Earth Day." What an amazing list of "dire predictions" that have been thrown at us over the years. True, some of what is said may be based on truth but with such extreme statements, how are we to know when to fully trust what is being said these days by environmentalists. ESPECIALLY not the final quote listed; UNBELIEVEABLE! - Stan]

Each year, Earth Day is accompanied by predictions of doom. Let's take a look at past predictions to determine just how much confidence we can have in today's environmentalists' predictions.

In 1970, when Earth Day was conceived, the late George Wald, a Nobel laureate biology professor at Harvard University, predicted, "Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." Also in 1970, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist and best-selling author of "The Population Bomb," declared that the world's population would soon outstrip food supplies. In an article for The Progressive, he predicted, "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." He gave this warning in 1969 to Britain's Institute of Biology: "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." On the first Earth Day, Ehrlich warned, "In 10 years, all important animal life in the sea will be extinct." Despite such predictions, Ehrlich has won no fewer than 16 awards, including the 1990 Crafoord Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' highest award

In International Wildlife (July 1975), Nigel Calder warned, "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind." In Science News (1975), C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization is reported as saying, "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed."

In 2000, climate researcher David Viner told The Independent, a British newspaper, that within "a few years," snowfall would become "a very rare and exciting event" in Britain. "Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said. "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past." In the following years, the U.K. saw some of its largest snowfalls and lowest temperatures since records started being kept in 1914.

In 1970, ecologist Kenneth Watt told a Swarthmore College audience: "The world has been chilling sharply for about 20 years. If present trends continue, the world will be about 4 degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990 but 11 degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." Also in 1970, Sen. Gaylord Nelson wrote in Look magazine: "Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian (Institution), believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."

Scientist Harrison Brown published a chart in Scientific American that year estimating that mankind would run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold and silver were to disappear before 1990.

Erroneous predictions didn't start with Earth Day. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior said American oil supplies would last for only another 13 years. In 1949, the secretary of the interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous claims, in 1974 the U.S. Geological Survey said that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. The fact of the matter, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is that as of 2014, we had 2.47 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, which should last about a century.

Hoodwinking Americans is part of the environmentalist agenda. Environmental activist Stephen Schneider told Discover magazine in 1989: "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. ... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." In 1988, then-Sen. Timothy Wirth, D-Colo., said: "We've got to ... try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong ... we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Americans have paid a steep price for buying into environmental deception and lies.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]
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"Former Obama Official Says Bureaucrats Manipulate Climate Stats to Influence Policy" - 
Chris White / April 24, 2017; http://dailysignal.com/2017/04/24/former-obama-official-says-bureaucrats-manipulate-climate-stats-to-influence-policy/

#1931 (4/26) "Liberalism in a Lab Coat - The March to Redefine Science"

"LIBERALISM IN A LAB COAT - THE MARCH TO REDEFINE SCIENCE" - by: Eric Metaxas & G. Shane Morris, Breakpoint.org, April 25, 2017; http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/04/breakpoint-liberalism-lab-coat/

It seems every weekend brings a march for one cause or another in D.C. Last weekend, folks marched for science. Or did they?

In his preface to “Mere Christianity,” C. S. Lewis explains what happens when words lose their original meaning. Take the word “gentleman.” Once upon a time, Lewis writes, a gentleman was “one who had a coat of arms and some landed property. When you called someone ‘a gentleman,’ you were not paying him a compliment, but merely stating a fact.” Gradually, however, “gentleman” evolved into just that—a compliment. A true gentleman was no longer someone who met the objective qualifications, but a person whom the speaker liked. Thus, concludes Lewis, “gentleman” became a useless word.

I think another important word is undergoing this same redefinition. That word, alas, is science.
There was a time when “science” meant the systematic pursuit of knowledge through experimentation and observation. But it’s rapidly becoming a synonym for progressive politics and materialist philosophy.

To be labeled a “science-denier” in 2017 often just means you’ve upset someone who insists on teaching strict, Darwinian orthodoxy in schools, or who advocates particular climate legislation, or who supports ethically fraught research on embryos.

In contrast, being “pro-science” has become a shibboleth for supporting progressive ideology. Think of a recent ad by National Geographic with the caption, “Stand behind the facts. Stand with science. Stand for the planet.” But just weeks prior, National Geographic had run a cover depicting a nine-year-old boy dressed as a girl. Because, as we know, they stand with science.

But if there were ever going to be a ceremony inaugurating this new and useless definition of science, it’s got to be last weekend’s “March for Science” in the nation’s capital, co-chaired by Bill Nye, “the science guy.” Nye, a children’s TV host from the nineties with no formal training as a scientist, has recaptured the spotlight with his videos on climate change, abortion, women’s rights, and other topics.

To say his arguments in some of these videos are embarrassing is being kind. For instance, in one odd and rambling speech promoting abortion, Nye claimed that because many lives end through natural causes before they leave the womb that it’s okay for us to kill the unborn ourselves. That’s like saying it’s okay to kill adults, because millions die of natural causes. That does not stop Nye’s supporters from honoring him as a champion of science.

But not all of the marchers are fans. After issuing several revisions to his massive “Statement on Diversity and Inclusion,” the organizers of the March for Science are fending off critics who complain that Nye is a white male whose fame is the result of privilege. One wonders who, exactly, was in charge of this debacle. An official tweet, which has since been deleted, declared that “Colonization, racism, immigration, native rights, sexism, ableism, queer-, trans-, intersex-phobia, & econ[omic] justice are scientific issues.”

Heather Wilhelm at National Review got it right when she wrote that the whole event was collapsing into a civil war of competing left-wing agendas.

I hope someone—anyone—who still believes science has a definition independent of politics will speak up. Because whether it’s the denial that life begins at conception, the denial of sex and gender as biological facts, the denial of decades of research proving that children do best with their father and mother, or the denial of dissenting voices on Darwinism, the left has proven quite capable of ignoring science.

Language is powerful. Words matter. And “science”—real science—is too important a word for us to let go the way of “gentleman.”

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Resources - Don’t be fooled by ideology wrapped in the mantle of science. For more on this topic, see the article below
"The Left’s New Cure-All: ‘Science’" - Heather Wilhelm | National Review | April 12, 2017; http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446654/march-for-science-diversity-statement-progressive-identity-politics
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"Grotesque: This Is The Message Bill Nye The "Science Guy" Is Sending Your Kids" - 
Katie Pavlich: Apr 25, 2017; https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/04/25/grotesque-this-is-the-message-bill-nye-the-science-guy-is-sending-your-kids-n2317365

#1930 (4/25) "Trump's 100 days: An Executive Success"/"100 Days of Our Lives"

"TRUMP'S 100 DAYS: AN EXECUTIVE SUCCESS" - by Byron York | Apr 23, 2017, http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-trumps-100-days-an-executive-success/article/2621041 [AS I SEE IT: This is a good look at some of the successes as well as failures of the President's first 100 days. When you consider that its been just over 3 months, he has done a lot to be encouraged by. - Stan]

Of course Donald Trump over-promised for his first 100 days. What presidential candidate hasn't?

During last year's campaign, Trump spoke frequently of all the things he would do almost immediately upon entering the Oval Office. He'd repeal Obamacare, reform the tax code, destroy ISIS, build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, fix the nation's roads and bridges, take care of veterans, deport criminal illegal immigrants, and much, much more. By the last weeks of the campaign, Trump actually dialed back some of his promises...Now, three months into the Trump administration,... Trump has kept a significant number of his promises:
     Candidate Trump promised to "begin the process" of selecting a Supreme Court Justice to replace Antonin Scalia. As president, Trump did just that, and Neil Gorsuch is now on the Court.
     Candidate Trump promised to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As president, he did it.
     Candidate Trump promised to require that "for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated." As president, he did it.
     Candidate Trump promised to "lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks" on the Keystone Pipeline and other infrastructure projects. As president, he did it.
     Candidate Trump promised to "begin removing the more than two million criminal illegal immigrants" in the U.S. As president, he did it.
     On other issues, Trump has kept front-page promises, but with decidedly mixed results. The most significant of those is his pledge to "suspend immigration from terror-prone regions." Trump has done it — twice — only to see his executive orders tied up in the courts. His first try was botched, while the second try will likely survive judicial scrutiny.
     Trump also promised to "cancel all federal funding" for so-called sanctuary cities. He has begun to do so — the Justice Department is beginning to threaten to withdraw some grant money — but the promise was over-broad and will likely never be fully kept.
     In addition, Trump promised to impose a "five-year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service." He kept the pledge for White House officials but does not have the authority to tell Congress what to do — so again, a partially kept, but originally over-broad promise.
     Some promises Trump has openly chosen to break. He promised to "direct the Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator." Now, he says he will not do so if China is helping the U.S. solve the so-far-intractable North Korea problem.

The net result of Trump's promises involving executive authority is that he has done well... Indeed, the two biggest successes of Trump's first 100 days are... the Gorsuch nomination and Trump's immigration executive order tightening controls at the Mexico border. "We've seen a dramatic reduction in illegal migration across the southwest border," Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Friday. "In fact, March apprehensions were 30 percent lower than February apprehensions — and 64 percent lower than the same time next year." 
That is a solid success by any measure.

But ...Unlike many of his speeches, Trump was careful not to promise legislative success...But Trump has not even introduced promised legislation like the American Energy and Infrastructure Act, or the School Choice and Education Opportunity Act, or the Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act, or others...

The president, mostly following the lead of House Republicans, has taken a shot — and failed — at repealing and replacing Obamacare. To the extent that that work continues — a vote in the House could be just a few weeks away — he can be said to be working on keeping that promise. And Trump has pledged to bring out some sort of tax proposal this week — not an actual tax reform bill, but movement closer to the goal of reforming the tax code. So on the two biggest items on the back page of the Contract, by the time the actual 100 day mark arrives next Saturday, Trump will be able to say he's making progress.

... the president has been a crucial part of a determined effort by Capitol Hill Republicans to use the Congressional Review Act to abolish rules put in place by the Obama administration. Trump has signed 12 such bills into law voiding Obama rules on energy, firearms, federal labor contracts, local control of education, and other topics. The CRA bills have sometimes been left out of assessments of Trump's record on Capitol Hill. But undoing the damage done by a predecessor is an entirely legitimate use of presidential power, and Republicans certainly give Trump credit for enabling their rollback of the Obama rules. [see yesterday's post #1929]

Beyond the CRA, there is obviously more to Trump's 100 day performance...What about his missile attack on Syria? His stance toward North Korea? Iran? Trump has received mixed-to-good notices on a number of foreign policy responses to unforeseen fast-moving events — all responses based on executive authority.

The bottom line is that Trump has been a 100 day success when it comes to exercising the executive powers of the presidency. He has done a great deal of what he said he would do, and promises to do more. (The White House is planning a new set of executive orders this week to beat the 100 day deadline.)

On the legislative front, while Trump has been part of a successful Republican effort to turn back parts of the Obama legacy, the president has failed to pass an Obamacare repeal and replace bill, failed to pass tax reform, and for that matter failed to pass any other significant piece of legislation. If Trump wanted to have a signature legislative achievement in his pocket by the 100 day mark, he certainly didn't act like it.

But it is precisely in the legislative area that the 100 day mark is such an unrealistic measure. Congress acts on its own schedule. Truth be told, next January, on the occasion of Trump's first year in office, if he has passed either a full-scale Obamacare repeal and replace measure or a major tax reform measure, that would be a reasonably good legislative record for a first year. This is not the New Deal or the Great Society, when there are huge filibuster-proof majorities in Congress and giant bills coming one after another. In today's atmosphere and party alignments, Trump will do well to get one big thing passed.

So on the 100 days, call the president an executive success.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]
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"100 Days of Our Lives..." - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, April 24, 2017;http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA17D43&f=WU17D14 
     The Left may not like the job President Trump is doing, but the people who hired him for it are sure happy! Despite all the hype about Trump's unpopularity, even the latest Washington Post/ABC poll shows what a convenient soundbite that is. The reality is, the White House's new occupant couldn't be more popular with the people who voted for him -- sporting a 94 percent approval rating heading into his first big milestone: 100 days in office.
     To his base, President Trump hasn't just met expectations -- he's exceeded them. Pro-lifers, in particular, have a lot to cheer after two terms of the most ruthless abortion ally in history. From reinstating the ban on overseas abortion promotion and funding to giving states the right to sever ties with Planned Parenthood, President Trump is keeping faith with his base -- not just with his commitment to fulfill his promises, but the incredible speed at which he's doing it. Mick Mulvaney, who directs the Office of Management and Budget, pushed back on the Left's criticism. "What I think folks don't realize is that we've signed more legislation into law in the first 100 days than anybody in the last 50 years. We put up more executive orders than any previous administration in the last 50 years." He's inked his name on 28 bills (the most since President Roosevelt), 24 executive orders, 22 presidential memorandums, and 20 proclamations.
     But, as the president himself pointed out on Twitter, "No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including the Supreme Court), media will kill!" Of course, the best way to judge Trump should be his judge -- Neil Gorsuch, a proud originalist who now sits on America's highest court for life. In that single appointment, President Trump has done more for the country -- and constitutional governance -- than some presidents will do in their entire term.
     But as appreciative as conservatives are for the missile strikes, health care negotiations, and a powerful roll back of Obama's transgender bathroom and shower mandate, there's still work to be done. At the top of the list? An executive order protecting what the First Amendment already gave us: religious liberty. Conservative leaders want it. Almost 20 U.S. senators have called for it. And the attack on so many innocent Christians demands it. As we celebrate the accomplishments of the first 100 days, we'll keep encouraging the administration to push forward on another one: protecting and upholding Americans' freedom to live according to their faith, and as the Constitution provides.

"The First 100 Days to Securing America" - Ken Blackwell · Apr. 24, 2017; https://patriotpost.us/opinion/48687

#1929 (4/24) "11 Ways Trump Has Rolled Back Government Regulations in His First 100 Days"

"11 WAYS TRUMP HAS ROLLED BACK GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS IN HIS FIRST 100 DAYS" - Rachel del Guidice / April 23, 2017 / http://dailysignal.com/2017/04/23/11-ways-trump-has-rolled-back-government-regulations-in-his-first-100-days/ [AS I SEE IT: The media will not make much of what President Trump has done in turning back unnecessary and dangerous regulations. But here are examples of how the impact would be far reaching for many Americans. Let's not overlook these accomplishments as we look back on the past 100 days. - Stan]

Working with Republican lawmakers through the Congressional Review Act, President Donald Trump has signed more regulatory rollbacks than any other president. (Photo: Polaris/Newscom)

As President Donald Trump reaches his 100th day in the White House on April 29, he will have worked with Congress to rescind more regulations using the Congressional Review Act than any other president. “We’re excited about what we’re doing so far. We’ve done more than that’s ever been done in the history of Congress with the CRA,” Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., told The Daily Signal in an interview, referring to the law called the Congressional Review Act.

The Congressional Review Act, the tool Trump and lawmakers are using, allows Congress to repeal executive branch regulations. Once the House and Senate pass a joint resolution disapproving of a particular regulation, the president signs the measure. Passed in 1996 in concert with the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act and then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America reform agenda, the Congressional Review Act is what the Congressional Research Service calls “an oversight tool that Congress may use to overturn a rule issued by a federal agency.” The law also prevents agencies from creating similar rules with similar language. Until this year, the law had been used successfully only once—in 2001, when Congress and President George W. Bush rescinded a regulation regarding workplace injuries promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration.

Here’s a look at the 11 regulatory rollbacks Congress has passed and Trump has signed:

1) Regulations governing the coal mining industry (H.J. Res 41).
     Mandated by President Barack Obama and finalized in  2016, these regulations “threatened to put domestic extraction companies and their employees at an unfair disadvantage,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said. The resolution, signed by Trump in February, repealed the rule and “could save American businesses as much as $600 million annually,” Spicer said. “Complying with the regulation would have put an unsustainable financial burden on small mines,” Spicer said.

2) Regulations defining streams in the coal industry (H.J. Res 38). 
     The so-called Stream Protection Rule included “vague definitions of what classifies as a stream,” Nick Loris, a fellow in energy and environmental policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email, and undoing it does away with ambiguities. For many regulations promulgated by the Obama administration, they fundamentally disregarded the nature of the federal-state relationship when it comes to energy production and environmental protection. The Stream Protection Rule … removed flexibility from mining steps and simply ignored that states have regulations in place to protect water quality. State and local environmental agencies’ specific knowledge of their region enables them to tailor regulations to promote economic activity while protecting the habitat and environment.

3) Regulations restricting firearms for disabled citizens (H.J. Res 40).
     This rule, finalized during Obama’s last weeks in office, sought to “prevent some Americans with disabilities from purchasing or possessing firearms based on their decision to seek Social Security benefits,” Spicer said.The repeal protects the Second Amendment rights of the disabled, Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said. “Those rights will no longer be able to be revoked without a hearing and without due process. It will take more than the personal opinion of a bureaucrat,” Grassley said on the Senate floor...
     But Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., said the regulation didn’t cover “just people having a bad day,” adding: "These are not people simply suffering from depression or anxiety. These are people with a severe mental illness who can’t hold any kind of job or make any decisions about their affairs. So the law says very clearly they shouldn’t have a firearm.

4) A rule governing the government contracting process (H.J. Res. 37).
     Undoing the regulation will cut costs to businesses and free federal contractors from “unnecessary and burdensome processes that would result in delays, and decreased competition for federal government contracts,” Spicer said.

5) A rule covering public lands (H.J. Res. 44).
      The rule gave the federal government too much power “to administer public lands,” in the words of the official website of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told The Daily Signal in an interview that the Bureau of Land Management’s rule restricted the control that states and their citizens had, especially in the West.“The Obama administration wanted to shift land policy from local governments with specific expertise to the federal government, basically shifting even more of the land management policy away from those affected by it,” Lee said. “Repealing this harmful rule will go a long way toward empowering local stakeholders and ensuring that Arizona’s cattlemen, miners, and rural land users have a voice in the planning process,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said in prepared remarks.

6) Reporting requirements regarding college teachers (H.J. Res. 58).
      The rule mandated annual reporting by states “to measure the performance and quality of teacher preparation programs and tie them to program eligibility for participation in the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education grant program,” Spicer said.Anne Ryland, a research assistant in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email that the rule “gave the federal Department of Education power to evaluate teacher preparation programs at universities, and to link college students’ access to federal financial aid in the form of TEACH grants to the rating of the programs.” “University programs,” Ryland added, “would be rated based on the effectiveness of their teaching graduates, with effectiveness determined by elementary and secondary students’ test scores and achievement gains.”

7) Regulations on state education programs (H.J. Res. 57).
      Congress and Trump rescinded federal rules that “require states to have an accountability system based on multiple measures, including school quality or student success, to ensure that states and districts focus on improving outcomes and measuring student progress,” Spicer said.
The repeal is the first step in “a reconceptualization of Washington’s role in education,” Ryland said. “These regulations were prime examples of federal micromanagement,” she said. “They were highly prescriptive and highly complex, serving only to put more power in the hands of bureaucrats and to distract schools and teachers from the work of educating students.”

8) Drug-testing requirements (H.J. Res 42).
     Spicer said the regulation mandates an “arbitrarily narrow definition of occupations and constrains a state’s ability to conduct a drug-testing program in its unemployment insurance system.” Four Republican governors—Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Greg Abbott of Texas, Gary Herbert of Utah, and Phil Bryant of Mississippi—wrote Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to ask that states be allowed to implement their own policies.
“We believe this rule should be replaced with a new rule that allows increased flexibility for states to implement … drug testing that best fits the needs of each state,” the governors said in the February letter.

9) Hunting regulations for wildlife preserves in Alaska (H.J. Res 69).
     These regulations restricted Alaska’s ability “to manage hunting of predators on national wildlife refuges in Alaska,” Spicer said. In a formal statement, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, called the rule “another example of the federal government’s determination these past eight years to destroy a state’s ability to manage their wildlife.”

10) Internet privacy rule (S.J.Res. 34).
     Published during the final months of Obama’s presidency, the rule sought to force “new privacy standards on internet service providers, allowing bureaucrats in Washington to pick winners and losers in the industry,” Spicer said. Flake, who sponsored the resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, said repeal helps keep consumers in charge of how they share their electronic information. “My resolution is the first step toward restoring the [Federal Trade Commission’s] light-touch, consumer-friendly approach,” Flake said. “It will not change or lessen existing consumer privacy protections. It empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared.”

11) Rule for logging workplace injuries (H.J. 83).
This rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration sought to squelch a more lenient one from the Labor Department. Spicer said the rule “disapproved” of a Labor regulation “extending the statute of limitation for claims against employers failing to maintain records of employee injuries.” “This OSHA power grab was completely unlawful,” said Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., chairman of the House workforce protections subcommittee. “It would have done nothing to improve workplace safety while creating significant regulatory confusion for small businesses.”

Through extensive use of the Congressional Review Act, Collins said, Trump is establishing a “legacy” of deregulation.“I think there’s really a legacy really to be had here,” the Republican congressman from Georgia said. Congress, with backing from Trump, is making good on promises and saying, “We’re not going to allow our jurisdiction and our constitutional authority to be overrun by the executive branch,” Collins said. Past administrations from both parties, he said, have not been so devoted to deregulation.“There was a definite disconnect between the previous administration, and even previous Republican administrations, on doing things on their own and not going through the proper legislative process,” Collins said.

[bold,italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Sarah Sleem contributed to this report.

#1928 (4/23) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "Deadly Utilitarianism - It’s not What We Can Do, but Whose We Are"

"DEADLY UTILITARIANISM - IT'S NOT WHAT WE CAN DO, BUT WHOSE WE ARE" - by: Eric Metaxas & Stan Guthrie, April 7, 2017; http://www.breakpoint.org/2017/04/breakpoint-deadly-utilitarianism/

What’s the most dangerous thing you can say to someone in our society? “You’re useless!”

Amy Julia Becker is a successful author and columnist. She also is the mom of a beautiful daughter, a fifth-grader who wears glasses, who loves reading and spelling, but who isn’t so sure about fractions and dogs. “She is responsible, smart, talented, and loving,” Amy wrote recently in Christianity Today. “She also has Down syndrome.”

When discussing her daughter or others with Down syndrome, Amy says she is tempted to list their accomplishments and abilities as a way to justify their existence. Not any more. “In so doing,” Amy admits, “I play into the idea that I, too, am only worthy of life because I contribute something productive in the world. I devalue myself and everyone else around me when I start to see human beings as products to be measured.”

As our friend Chuck Colson warned, measuring people by what they can do or contribute to society is dangerous. If someone can be called “useless,” such as a child with Down syndrome, what’s to keep “society” from deciding to eliminate anyone deemed not to have a life worth living? This isn’t alarmism, folks.

Amy says that the abortion rate in the United States for babies with Down syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is about 50 percent and is likely to increase as prenatal testing becomes more available. As bad as that is, in Iceland, not one child with Down syndrome was born between 2008 and 2012. In Denmark, an estimated 98 percent of those diagnosed with Down syndrome are being aborted—deemed useless.

But as anyone who’s actually been around people with Down syndrome knows, they’re definitely not useless. They have individual personalities, likes and dislikes, and often possess a level of joie de vivre that puts the rest of us to shame. But that’s not the point! The point is this: Every human being is created in God’s image and is precious to Him! As Chuck said it so well, “Being created in the imago Dei endows every person with dignity—a dignity that is not derived from the majority’s opinion (or a government definition) about the quality of their life or their contribution to society.”

Amy Julia Becker notes that not everything worth keeping can be measured in utilitarian terms and pass a strict cost-benefit analysis. She quotes the Irish poet Michael Longley, who said on National Public Radio, “Poetry is useless,” before adding, “Poetry is without use, but it is valuable.” Imagine a world without poetry! Although maybe only one in a million poets can make a living from it, we’d all be immeasurably poorer without it. There’d be no Shakespeare, Milton, or the book of Psalms! You cannot put a utilitarian price tag on poetry—nor on people, whatever challenges they face.

However, when we value each person as made in the image of God and make room in our hearts for those with disabilities, we often experience a beautiful poetry unfolding in our own lives we never could have expected. Amy writes, “People with disabilities are indeed like the words of a poem. Although they might not provide or produce clothing or shelter or food, they nonetheless convey beauty and meaning, truth and transcendence. They teach us what it means to be human.”

And let’s face it—caring for those who need us is more than a nice thing for the Church to do. It’s a requirement. As our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 25, those who tend to the hungry, the naked, the  cross. 

Resources
"Why We Need ‘Useless’ People" - Amy Julia Becker | Christianity Today | March 21, 2017; http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/march/why-we-need-useless-people.html
"Quality Control: Who Lives, Who Dies?" - Chuck Colson | BreakPoint.org | July 27, 2009; http://archive.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/13756
"The Seven Last Sayings of Jesus on the Cross" - pdf | Colson Center | April 2017; http://www.breakpoint.org/free/

#1927 (4/22) PRO-LIFE-SAT: ""Defending the Inalienable Right to Life As God's Law"

"DEFENDING THE INALIENABLE RIGHT TO LIFE AS GOD’S LAW" - April 4th, 2017; http://www.getamericapraying.com/blog/defending-the-inalienable-right-to-life-as-gods-law/

Pray for our judiciary to understand and embrace that law must derive its authority and meaning from God and God’s law.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Rom. 1:20)

The word “precedent” was used many times during Judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing, but it was Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s questions that recalled William Blackstone’s iconic work, “The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Blackstone affirmed the parallel equality of the “laws of nature” (the moral law governing nature and inscribed on the heart of man) to the “law of God,” the revelation of that law in the Scripture. Sen. Feinstein pressed Judge Gorsuch to agree that Roe v. Wade of 1973 which decriminalized abortion was not only a precedent but something now called a “super-precedent.” She insinuated it was solidly supreme.

As if to carve in stone the infallibility of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions by tacking on superlatives — no matter how incorrect and unjust such a decision might be, Sen. Feinstein and other dissenters to Blackstone’s “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” aimed for supremacy over God’s law. In the end, they will always lose no matter how many “super-super-super’s” they put before the word “precedent” because God has already spoken and given us His Supreme Law.

Here it is: the right to life is inalienable, unalienable, absolute, immutable, unassailable, indisputable and undeniable. Supreme Court justices, congresswomen, nor a mob of misguided feminists who march on Washington give us the right to live. God does. In fact, God keeps stacking the deck in His favor making His “super-super-super precedent” on this perceived inconsequential matter of human life known through the realm of science even converted the heart and mind of America’s “abortion king,” Dr. Bernard Nathanson. 

He is the onetime atheist who cofounded NARAL. The science opened his eyes to the supreme law written on his heart, that the unborn child is his second patient, and that abortion is cold-blooded murder. Dr. Nathanson told me in 2009 that “the bombshell [for me] was real-time ultrasound. It made everything come alive. It opened a window into the womb.” In his book, “The Abortion Papers,” Dr. Nathanson reflected on the tactics he and others used to establish abortion as a constitutional right. “A political victory achieved by such odious tactics is at best an unstable tyranny spawned by an unscrupulous and unprincipled minority. At the very least this disclosure of those odious tactics should compel those who are uneasy with permissive abortion to re-examine the issue .” If still alive, Dr. Nathanson might be glad that Sen. Feinstein is asking Judge Gorsuch to revisit Roe v Wade.

Dr. Nathanson grew to appreciate that neither our legislators nor our judges can alter the value system for which America must operate. It was settled at the birth of our nation when it was written in the Declaration of Independence. It’s the value system which recognizes the self-evident truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Whether Sen. Feinstein likes it or not, Judge Gorsuch is bound by “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Neither she, nor any other senator, can undo it because those laws are written on the heart of man. Judge Gorsuch recognizes that they are written in America’s founding documents, and he cannot alter them, either. The intentional killing of innocent life — no matter how the procedure is linguistically sugar-coated — does not abide by our founding principles.

When Judge Gorsuch and future nominees are confirmed and the abortion cases are revisited, these Justices will have what the Supreme Court did not have in the early ‘70s: the science of real-time ultrasound showing what it looks like to abort a baby.

In his letter resigning from NARAL in 1975, Dr. Nathanson wrote that “the judgments of the Supreme Court were never meant to be infallible or eternal. And what if we’ve been wrong, if the Court should soon reverse itself on the abortion issue in the light of changing times and/or new scientific evidence? What an incalculable injustice will have been perpetrated. What an immeasurable irretrievable loss will have been suffered.”

The NARAL founder understood the fallibility of man’s perception of precedence and how it can never supersede “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” The truth Dr. Nathanson and our Founders left behind will restore righteous precedent, justice in the courts and a catalyst to heal our land. (Contributor: By Terry Beatley for The Washington Times – Terry Beatley, president of the Hosea Initiative, is a right-to-life activist and a member of the board of the Virginia Christian Alliance.)

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

#1926 (4/21) "What Every American Needs to Know About Islam"

"WHAT EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT  ISLAM" - Caleb Parke Caleb Parke | Apr 07, 2017; https://townhall.com/columnists/calebparke/2017/04/07/what-every-american-needs-to-know-about-islam-n2310392

“The West is in need of the truth, regardless of how hard it is to hear.” – Nonie Darwish on Islam in America, Wholly Different

Nonie Darwish never chose to be a Muslim. It was assigned to her at birth, listed on all her documents, her father was even a prominent Islamic martyr, and for the first 30 years of her life, she never questioned it. But when she moved to America, she made the life-changing decision to become a Christian after stepping foot into a church and realizing how oppressive and diametrically opposed her Islamic upbringing was compared to the freedom and love she experienced in the West.

When I first met Nonie Darwish at a conference in Washington, D.C., she had this contagious energy and passion. She took the time after one of her speeches to talk to me and several other college students. But I really got to know her when I invited her to speak at my campus for the pro-Israel group I helped co-found. I’ll never forget the hour-long ride to and from the airport. Nonie spoke about what a miracle it is to be a Christian living in America, and we still keep in touch today.

I have learned so much from her about the utter importance of why Americans need to learn about the dangers we face because of Islam, but I learned even more reading her new book, which is why I’m so excited to share it with you. Darwish courageously lays out everything Americans, especially Christians, need to know about Islam in her new book: Wholly Different: Why I Chose Biblical Values Over Islamic Values.

She’s the perfect messenger, as someone who spent almost half her life as a Muslim and the other half as a Christian. Through her experience and extensive research into both Islam and Christianity, Darwish boldly shares how Islamic values are in direct opposition to Western values.
In "Wholly Different," Darwish exposes lies the West has come to believe like “Islam is a religion of peace,” when their holy book, prophet, and god call for the killing of Christians and Jews. She speaks of the dangers of Islam’s resistance to assimilation, and our willingness to give them permission through multiculturalism. It’s packed with examples from Nonie’s life experience as well as extensive quotes and statistics.

Although I’ve learned a few things about Muhammad and sharia law over the years, as a Christian who loves Israel, I knew that Muslims in the Middle East call Israel the “little Satan” and refer to the United States as the “great Satan,” but I learned more about Islam in "Wholly Different" than I have over the last decade.

For instance, did you know that the Koran is predominantly about the kafirs, or non-Muslims, rather than a book about Muslims? It’s the only religion whose holy text is focused on non-believers, and as Nonie notes, the West should be alarmed about what is written in the Koran about us, non-Muslims.

“The Islamic God, Allah, requires his followers to dedicate their lives to change, fix, convert, or kill kafirs, whom Allah calls his enemies. That, in a nutshell, is the holy mission of a Muslim if he is to please his God and go to heaven,” Darwish writes. She clearly lays out the stark contrast between the Bible and the Koran:
     Jesus Died for Us vs. We Must Die for Allah
     Life Is Sacred vs. Death Is Worship
     We Are All Sinners vs. They Are All Sinners
     God the Redeemer vs. Allah the Humiliator

Nonie says she wrote this book, “to uncover the full scope of this threat from Islam — something the West desperately needs to be aware of.” She goes on, “Islamic values versus Biblical values is a bloody collision waiting to happen. The West must be warned. But I am also writing this book for Muslim immigrants…Islamic values are fundamentally incompatible with Western values, the U.S. Constitution, and the American way of life.” Darwish makes the distinction that she is not criticizing people, but rather a “toxic ideology” that she “lived under and escaped from.”

I highly encourage you to get "Wholly Different" today so you can educate yourself with the truth about Islam from a former Muslim, and make sure that you don’t fall prey to the pervasive lies many in America have begun to believe.

As Nonie notes in the book, we need to revive the Biblical roots and values in our culture to truly thrive and defeat Islam.

I’m thankful for Nonie Darwish, an Esther in our generation, fighting to save God’s people for such a time as this.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]